


Chirality

by Liquid_Lyrium



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Goodbyes, Inspired by Art, Intimacy, M/M, Other, Pining, Swordtember, The Arrangement (Good Omens), except when it's only sorrow, hand holding, parting is such sweet sorrow
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-22
Updated: 2020-09-22
Packaged: 2021-03-07 19:01:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 970
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26602627
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Liquid_Lyrium/pseuds/Liquid_Lyrium
Summary: There is no up or down, no above or below. Just the the push and pull that exists between him and Aziraphale.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 24
Kudos: 42





	Chirality

**Author's Note:**

  * For [doorwaytoparadise](https://archiveofourown.org/users/doorwaytoparadise/gifts).



> I went into a haze after seeing my friend's amazing art and I made this. [PLEASE PUT UR EYEBALLS ON IT IMMEDIATELY AND REBLOG IT A THOUSAND TIMES.](https://sungmee.tumblr.com/post/629952134222364672/so-yall-know-that-one-painting-the-meeting-on) (you'll be glad you did). _Ben Wyatt voice:_ It's about the yearning. 
> 
> *lies down and weeps*

She sat in her bower, with eyes of flame,

_(My sorrow is known to God alone.)_

Bending over the broidery frame,

_(And oh there liveth none to whom my sorrow may be told.)_

[ _- **Hellalye and Hildebrand**_ ](https://www.google.com/books/edition/Fraser_s_Magazine/awBhXZd313sC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=And%20oh%20there%20liveth%20none%20to%20whom%20my%20sorrow%20may%20be%20told.&pg=PA89&printsec=frontcover)

Ascending does not feel like forgiveness to Crowley. It doesn’t feel like going home. It feels like punishment as he climbs each winding turret stair.

It’s simple really. All he has to do is go tell Aziraphale he’s made a mistake. Call the whole arrangement off. They can come up with something else to take its place. He doesn’t know what that would be.

His stomach sinks as he rounds the spire again and sees Aziraphale descending. He feels ill. Like one of Pestilence’s plagues is grabbing him by the guts at the sight of it.

“Oh, pardon me.” Aziraphale speaks the words softly as he comes to rest a hand on stone. He’s dressed in his armor The stairwell coils in on itself like a secretive snail, too narrow for two to walk comfortably abreast. Crowley lifts his chin and looks at Aziraphale mutely.

Up and down are relative. He only knows that there is something between them. Some central point he cannot define around which the pitch and yaw of the universe conspire to keep him and the angel apart.

They have always been evenly matched. Two sides of a coin minted in a kingdom since split in twain.

“Is she down there?” Aziraphale asks. His words are so quiet he couldn’t have snuffed a candle held beneath his nose.

“Yeah,” Crowley says instead of what he wants to say. He turns sideways and starts shimmying past Aziraphale as the angel steps down. As he brushes past Crowley’s entire universe narrows down to the fulcrum of Aziraphale’s hand sweeping down his arm and lifting to trap it against his chest. They stand pressed together from hip to back. Crowley braces his hand against the wall as they teeter on this tipping point. This pinhead moment where they might as well be dancing between those huge gaps between electrons.

The moment aches like a century old tree under the weight of its own summer fruit. It stretches like dough under a baker’s hands. He can feel the pull and tension against his arm, the weight that might carry them both tumbling up-down a hundred stairs. For every tiny motion that pulls against him, Crowley gives an opposing one in return. He closes his eyes as Aziraphale sighs into his sleeve. Crowley flexes his hand uselessly where it hangs bereft.

“You’ll need to reshod your horse before you ride… I made it throw a shoe.” He doesn’t know why he’s admitting to it.

Aziraphale lets out another deep sigh. There’s nothing of resignation or anger or anguish to it. Just the release of air from his lungs.

“Thank you my dear, for telling me so.”

Crowley has never considered his elbow as particularly interesting or erotic before, but he thinks it might be the most blessed, emotionally moving part of his entire body right now the way Aziraphale lays his nose there like it was made to fit. Like he could live there in this blade-edge moment where they stand—two creatures trying to fit in a microscopic shell on the Almighty’s infinite shores.

“Still think you should stay,” it’s frighteningly close to admitting what he wants.

“I won the bet,” Aziraphale says with something that is frighteningly close to a kiss to the pulse hiding beneath his sleeve.

“Wasn’t fair,” Crowley grimaces, “you cheated.” _Should have thought of it first,_ but he’d been too greedy, too naïve. Too hungry for skin to see what Aziraphale had been doing.

“I won’t be gone long, darling,” Aziraphale tries to soothe. “You’ll barely have time to miss me,” the angel pulls away, mail-clad hands dragging down Crowley’s arm as he goes down another step. Crowley presses his hand flat against his chest, into his surcoat, trying to hold him there another moment longer. Fingers tangling in the fabric like the bedclothes they shared.

The sensation of flesh on flesh and breath against breath rise to the surface. As if he can selfishly hoard a fortnight of memories into a single touch. _Who will braid my hair in the mornings now? Who will tangle my hair at night?_ He does not allow himself to think of secret flashes of red silk concealed beneath Heavenly gold.

“She’s waiting for you,” Crowley says through gritted teeth. “As much as she waits for anyone.”

“Yes,” Aziraphale rests his hand on the back of Crowley’s. “It’s better this way. You’ll see. I’m good with a sword.”

 _“You hate her,”_ Crowley hisses, just to be contrary. Aziraphale is silent for another honey-slow epoch.

“Not, I think, as much as you,” he says at last. Crowley huffs out a laugh, pulling away, only to have the heel of his thumb caught in an iron hand.

“I’m not the one who gave his sword away the first chance he got.”

Aziraphale hums thoughtfully, and he goes down a step, and then another, holding his hand awkwardly up to his shoulder, fingers still hooked around Crowley’s thumb.

“I’ll be sure not to do that this time,” he says simply, and the touch finally vanishes. It’s like winter settling over his bones as he rocks forward on unsteady feet, freed from his counterbalance. He can still feel Aziraphale at the other end of whatever it is that marries them together. That central point between them that seems to contract and expand with the ache in his heart, with the shifting of distance.

Crowley is left alone to climb the sinistral staircase—despite the fact the up and down are relative when looked at from the point of view of the cosmos—and Aziraphale goes to War. 


End file.
